CHAPTER XXXIII. THE DAY OF THE CARNIVAL
On the day of the Carnival, which was the last day before the beginningof Lent, Prince Ferdinand William Otto wakened early. The Palace stillslept, and only the street-sweepers were about the streets. PrinceFerdinand William Otto sat up in bed and yawned. This was a special day,he knew, but at first he was too drowsy to remember.
Then he knew--the Carnival! A delightful day, with the Place full ofpeople in strange costumes--peasants, imps, jesters, who cut capers onthe grass in the Park, little girls in procession, wearing costumes offairies with gauze wings, students who paraded and blew noisy horns,even horses decorated, and now and then a dog dressed as a dancer or asoldier.
He would have enjoyed dressing Toto in something or other. He decided tomention it to Nikky, and with a child's faith he felt that Nikky would,so to speak, come up to the scratch.
He yawned again, and began to feel hungry. He decided to get up and takehis own bath. There was nothing like getting a good start for a galaday. And, since with the Crown Prince to decide was to do, which is notalways a royal trait, he took his own bath, being very particular abouthis ears, and not at all particular about the rest of him. Then, noOskar having yet appeared with fresh garments he ducked back into bedagain, quite bare as to his small body, and snuggled down in the sheets.
Lying there, he planned the day. There were to be no lessons exceptfencing, which could hardly be called a lesson at all, and as he nowknew the "Gettysburg Address," he meant to ask permission to recite itto his grandfather. To be quite sure of it, he repeated it to himself ashe lay there:--
"'Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.'
"Free and equal," he said to himself. That rather puzzled him. Of coursepeople were free, but they did not seem to be equal. In the summer, atthe summer palace, he was only allowed to see a few children, becausethe others were what his Aunt Annunciata called "bourgeois." And therewas in his mind also something Miss Braithwaite had said, after hisescapade with the American boy.
"If you must have some child to play with," she had said severely, "youcould at least choose some one approximately your equal."
"But he is my equal," he had protested from the outraged depths of hissmall democratic heart.
"In birth," explained Miss Braithwaite.
"His father has a fine business," he had said, still rather indignant."It makes a great deal of money. Not everybody can build a scenicrailway and get it going right. Bobby said so."
Miss Braithwaite had been silent and obviously unconvinced. Yet thisMr. Lincoln, the American, had certainly said that all men were free andequal. It was very puzzling.
But, as the morning advanced, as, clothed and fed, the Crown Princefaced the new day, he began to feel a restraint in the air. Peoplecame and went, his grandfather's Equerry, the Chancellor, the LordChamberlain, other gentlemen, connected with the vast and intricatemachinery of the Court, and even Hedwig, in a black frock, all thesepeople came, and talked together, and eyed him when he was not looking.When they left they all bowed rather more than usual, except Hedwig, whokissed him, much to his secret annoyance.
Every one looked grave, and spoke in a low tone. Also there wassomething wrong with Nikky, who appeared not only grave, but ratherstern and white. Considering that it was the last day before Lent, andCarnival time, Prince Ferdinand William Otto felt vaguely defrauded,rather like the time he had seen "The Flying Dutchman," which had turnedout to be only a make-believe ship and did not fly at all. To add to thecomplications, Miss Braithwaite had a headache.
Nikky Larisch had arrived just as Hedwig departed, and even the CrownPrince had recognized something wrong. Nikky had stopped just inside thedoorway, with his eyes rather desperately and hungrily on Hedwig, andHedwig, who should have been scolded, according to Prince Otto, hadpassed him with the haughtiest sort of nod.
The Crown Prince witnessed the nod with wonder and alarm.
"We are all rather worried," he explained afterward to Nikky, to soothehis wounded pride. "My grandfather is not so well to-day. Hedwig is veryunhappy."
"Yes," said Nikky miserably, "she does look unhappy."
"Now, when are we going out?" briskly demanded Prince Ferdinand WilliamOtto. "I can hardly wait. I've seen the funniest people already--anddogs. Nikky, I wonder if you could dress Toto, and let me see himsomewhere."
"Out! You do not want to go out in that crowd, do you?"
"Why--am I not to go?"
His voice was suddenly quite shaky. He was, in a way, so inured todisappointments that he recognized the very tones in which they wereusually announced. So he eyed Nikky with a searching glance, and sawthere the thing he feared.
"Well," he said resignedly, "I suppose I can see something from thewindows. Only--I should like to have a really good time occasionally."He was determined not to cry. "But there are usually a lot of people inthe Place."
Then, remembering that his grandfather was very ill, he tried to forgethis disappointment in a gift for him. Not burnt wood this time, but thedrawing of a gun, which he explained as he worked, that he had invented.He drew behind the gun a sort of trestle, with little cars, not unlikethe Scenic Railway, on which ammunition was delivered into the breech bysomething strongly resembling a coal-chute.
There was, after all, little to see from the windows. That part of thePlace near the Palace remained empty and quiet, by order of the King'sphysicians. And although it was Carnival, and the streets were throngedwith people, there was little of Carnival in the air. The city waited.
Some loyal subjects waited and grieved that the King lay dying. For,although the Palace had carefully repressed his condition, such thingsleak out, and there was the empty and silent Place to bear witness.
Others waited, too, but not in sorrow. And a certain percentage, theyoung and light-hearted, strutted the streets in fantastic costume, blewhorns and threw confetti and fresh flowers, still dewy from the mountainslopes. The Scenic Railway was crowded with merry-makers, and long linesof people stood waiting their turn at the ticket-booth, where a surlyold veteran, pinched with sleepless nights, sold them tickets andignored their badinage. Family parties, carrying baskets and wheelingbabies in perambulators, took possession of the Park and littered itwith paper bags. And among them, committing horrible crimes, dispatchingwhole families with a wooden gun from behind near-by trees and takinginnumerable prisoners, went a small pirate in a black mask and a sashof scarlet ribbon, from which hung various deadly weapons, including abread-knife, a meat-cleaver, and a hatchet.
Attempts to make Tucker wear a mask having proved abortive, he wasattired in a pirate flag of black, worn as a blanket, and having on it,in white muslin, what purported to be a skull and cross-bones but whichlooked like the word "ox" with the "O" superimposed over the "X."
Prince Ferdinand William Otto stood at his window and looked out.Something of resentment showed itself in the lines of his figure. Therewas, indeed, rebellion in his heart. This was a real day, a day ofdays, and no one seemed to care that he was missing it. Miss Braithwaitelooked drawn about the eyes, and considered carnivals rather common,and certainly silly. And Nikky looked drawn about the mouth, and did notcare to play.
Rebellion was dawning in the soul of the Crown Prince, not the impassiverevolt of the "Flying Dutchman" and things which only pretended to be,like the imitation ship and the women who were not really spinning. Thesame rebellion, indeed, which had set old Adelbert against the Kingand turned him traitor, a rebellion against needless disappointment, aprotest for happiness.
Old Adelbert, forbidden to march in his new uniform, the Crown Prince,forbidden his liberty and shut in a gloomy palace, were blood-brothersin revolt.
Not that Prince Ferdinand William Otto knew he was in revolt. At firstit consisted only of a consideration of his promise to the Chancellor.But while there had been an understanding, there had been
no actualpromise, had there?
Late in the morning Nikky took him to the roof. "We can't go out, oldman," Nikky said to him, rather startled to discover the unhappiness inthe boy's face, "but I've found a place where we can see more than wecan here. Suppose we try it."
"Why can't we go out? I've always gone before."
"Well," Nikky temporized, "they've made a rule. They make a good manyrules, you know. But they said nothing about the roof."
"The roof!"
"The roof. The thing that covers us and keeps out the weather. The roof,Highness." Nikky alternated between formality and the other extreme withthe boy.
"It slants, doesn't it?" observed his Highness doubtfully.
"Part of it is quite flat. We can take a ball up there, and get someexercise while we're about it."
As a matter of fact, Nikky was not altogether unselfish. He would visitthe roof again, where for terrible, wonderful moments he had held Hedwigin his arms. On a pilgrimage, indeed, like that of the Crown Prince toEtzel, Nikky would visit his shrine.
So they went to the roof. They went through silent corridors, past quietrooms where the suite waited and spoke in whispers, past the very doorof the chamber where the Council sat in session, and where reports werecoming in, hour by hour, as to the condition of things outside. Pastthe apartment of the Archduchess Annunciata, where Hilda, released fromlessons, was trying the effect of jet earrings against her white skin,and the Archduchess herself was sitting by her fire, and contemplatingthe necessity for flight. In her closet was a small bag, alreadypacked in case of necessity. Indeed, more persons than the ArchduchessAnnunciata had so prepared. Miss Braithwaite, for instance, had spent apart of the night over a traveling-case containing a small boy's outfit,and had wept as she worked, which was the reason for her headache.
The roof proved quite wonderful. One could see the streets crowded withpeople, could hear the soft blare of distant horns.
"The Scenic Railway is in that direction," observed the Crown Prince,leaning on the balustrade. "If there were no buildings we could see it."
"Right here," Nikky was saying to himself. "At this very spot. She heldout her arms, and I--"
"It looks very interesting," said Prince Ferdinand William Otto. "Ofcourse we can't see the costumes, but it is better than nothing."
"I kissed her," Nikky was thinking, his heart swelling under his verybest tunic. "Her head was on my breast, and I kissed her. Last of all,I kissed her eyes--her lovely eyes."
"If I fell off here," observed the Crown Prince in a meditative voice,"I would be smashed to a jelly, like the child at the Crystal Palace."
"But now she hates me," said Nikky's heart, and dropped about thedistance of three buttons. "She hates me. I saw it in her eyes thismorning. God!"
"We might as well play ball now."
Prince Ferdinand William Otto turned away from the parapet with a sigh.This strange quiet that filled the Palace seemed to have attacked Nikkytoo. Otto hated quiet.
They played ball, and the Crown Prince took a lesson in curves. But onhis third attempt, he described such a compound--curve that the balldisappeared over an adjacent part of the roof, and although Nikky didsome blood-curdling climbing along gutters, it could not be found.
It was then that the Majordomo, always a marvelous figure in crimsonand gold, and never seen without white gloves--the Majordomo bowed ina window, and observed that if His Royal Highness pleased, His RoyalHighness's luncheon was served.
In the shrouded room inside the windows, however, His Royal Highnesspaused and looked around.
"I've been here before," he observed. "These were my father's rooms.My mother lived here, too. When I am older, perhaps I can have them. Itwould be convenient on account of my practicing curves on the roof. ButI should need a number of balls."
He was rather silent on his way back to the schoolroom. But once helooked up rather wistfully at Nikky.
"If they were living," he said, "I am pretty sure they would take me outto-day."
Olga Loschek had found the day one of terror. Annunciata had demandedher attendance all morning, had weakened strangely and demandedfretfully to be comforted.
"I have been a bad daughter," she would say. "It was my nature. I waswarped and soured by wretchedness."
"But you have not been a bad daughter," the Countess would protest,for the thousandth time. "You have done your duty faithfully. You havestayed here when many another would have been traveling on the Riviera,or--"
"It was no sacrifice," said Annunciata, in her peevish voice. "I loathetraveling. And now I am being made to suffer for all I have done. Hewill die, and the rest of us--what will happen to us?" She shivered.
The Countess would take the cue, would enlarge on the precautions forsafety, on the uselessness of fear, on the popularity of the CrownPrince. And Annunciata, for a time at least, would relax. In her newremorse she made frequent visits to the sickroom, passing, a long, thinfigure, clad in black, through lines of bowing gentlemen, to stand bythe bed and wring her hands. But the old King did not even know she wasthere.
The failure of her plan as to Nikky and Hedwig was known to the Countessthe night before. Hedwig had sent for her and faced her in her boudoir,very white and calm.
"He refuses," she said. "There is nothing more to do."
"Refuses!"
"He has promised not to leave Otto."
Olga Loschek had been incredulous, at first. It was not possible. Men inlove did not do these things. It was not possible, that, after all, shehad failed. When she realized it, she would have broken out in bitterprotest, but Hedwig's face warned her. "He is right, of course," Hedwighad said. "You and I were wrong, Countess. There is nothing to do--orsay."
And the Countess had taken her defeat quietly, with burning eyes and athroat dry with excitement. "I am sorry, Highness," she said from thedoorway. "I had only hoped to save you from unhappiness. That is all.And, as you say, there is nothing to be done." So she had gone away andfaced the night, and the day which was to follow.
The plot was arranged, to the smallest detail. The King, living nowonly so long as it was decreed he should live; would, in mid-afternoon,commence to sink. The entire Court would be gathered in anterooms andsalons near his apartments. In his rooms the Crown Prince would be kept,awaiting the summons to the throne-room, where, on the King's death, theregency would be declared, and the Court would swear fealty to the newKing, Otto the Ninth. By arrangement with the captain of the Palaceguard, who was one of the Committee of Ten, the sentries before theCrown Prince's door were to be of the revolutionary party. Mettlichwould undoubtedly be with the King. Remained then to be reckonedwith only the Prince's personal servants, Miss Braithwaite, and NikkyLarisch.
The servants offered little difficulty. At that hour, four o'clock,probably only the valet Oskar would be on duty, and his station was atthe end of a corridor, separated by two doors from the schoolroom. Itwas planned that the two men who were to secure the Crown Prince were towear the Palace livery, and to come with a message that the Crown Princewas to accompany them. Then, instead of going to the wing where theCourt was gathered, they would go up to Hubert's rooms, and from thereto the roof and the secret passage.
Two obstacles were left for the Countess to cope with, and this was herpart of the work. She had already a plan for Miss Braithwaite. But NikkyLarisch?
Over that problem, during the long night hours, Olga Loschek worked. Itwould be possible to overcome Nikky, of course. There would be fourmen, with the sentries, against him. But that would mean struggle and analarm. It was the plan to achieve the abduction quietly, so quietly thatfor perhaps an hour--they hoped for an hour--there would be no alarm.Some time they must have, enough to make the long journey through theunderground passage. Otherwise the opening at the gate would be closed,and the party caught like rats in a hole.
The necessity for planning served one purpose, at least. It kept herfrom thinking. Possibly it saved her reason, for there were times duringthat last night when Olga
Loschek was not far from madness. At dawn,long after Hedwig had forgotten her unhappiness in sleep, the Countesswent wearily to bed. She had dismissed Minna hours before, and as shestood before her mirror, loosening her heavy hair, she saw that all thatwas of youth and loveliness in her had died in the night. A determined,scornful, and hard-eyed woman, she went drearily to bed.
During the early afternoon the Chancellor visited the Crown Prince.Waiting and watching had made inroads on him, too, but he assumed a sortof heavy jocularity for the boy's benefit.
"No lessons, eh?" he said. "Then there have been no paper balls for thetutors' eyes, eh?"
"I never did that but once, sir," said Prince Ferdinand William Ottogravely.
"So! Once only!"
"And I did that because he was always looking at Hedwig's picture."
The Chancellor eyed the picture. "I should be the last to condemn himfor that," he said, and glanced at Nikky.
"We must get the lad out somewhere for some air," he observed. "It isnot good to keep him shut up like this." He turned to the Crown Prince."In a day or so," he said, "we shall all go to the summer palace. Youwould like that, eh?"
"Will my grandfather be able to go?"
The Chancellor sighed. "Yes," he said, "I--he will go to the countryalso. He has loved it very dearly."
He went, shortly after three o'clock. And, because he was restless anduneasy, he made a round of the Palace, and of the guards. Before hereturned to his vigil outside the King's bedroom, he stood for a momentby a window and looked out. Evidently rumors of the King's condition hadcrept out, in spite of their caution. The Place, kept free of murmurs bythe police, was filling slowly with people; people who took up positionson benches, under the trees, and even sitting on the curb of the street.An orderly and silent crowd it seemed, of the better class. Here andthere he saw police agents in plain clothes, impassive but watchful, onthe lookout for the first cry of treason.
An hour or two, or three--three at the most and the fate of the Palacewould lie in the hands of that crowd. He could but lead the boy to thebalcony, and await the result.